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Osirian Rising by Ruin
Note: This is not about Ruin, or any character currently on the grid. This is, if you will, pure OS-fanfic that I'm not sure wouldn't serve me better cleaned up as a novel. Hence ...well, the somewhat vague nature of it. Drop me a line in PM if you'd like to see it continued as fanfic, or if I should take it off to turn it into a novel somewhere else. Call it the classic 'it was 3am and seemed like a good idea at the time' sort of event. Writing is just...what I do. ~*~ The world slowed down to half speed, then quarter speed, and then for the briefest of moments it stopped as the woman's body took the hovertruck's grille full-on. I thought she'd explode, you know, like a watermelon hit with a hammer, but she didn't. It sounded almost like...like slapping a wrapped side of beef, maybe, and then her body crumpled against the grille and went flying ahead of the truck to tumble in the street, roly-poly. And I just stared. The sounds are what I remember most - the engine of the hovertruck, that crumpling soft sound of her body at impact. I remember she was wearing a blue and white polka-dot dress. And a broad-brimmed sun hat. It went flying, of course, when she was hit....and I just stared. So did everyone else, because the truck - the truck just drove away. And I stared at it, in shock that a woman had been hit. In shock that someone could do something like that and just drive away. I remember wanting to cry...and I guess I did, because someone put a hand on my shoulder, and said, "It's okay. It's going to be okay." I didn't think so, at the time. I mean it was my lunch break, only the accident meant I was already ten minutes late starting back to my office, and the truck had just driven off and where were the cops and what about the poor old lady and...and. There was a lot of potential 'and' floating around just then, but I was far too upset to be able to say it, say all the things that were wrong. But she - blond hair, she had, and green eyes - she led me over to the old lady with a little smile that felt very reassuring. She wasn't in shock. She wasn't afraid. She was upset, but it was a useful kind of upset-ness, not the disorganized failing I was doing. "It's okay," she said. "I've worked as a nurse. I called 911. I just need a little help until they arrive. Please?" Her name, I learned later, was Anne. I was afraid, I was numb - two things you really wouldn't think could go together, but it was a frozen kind of numbness that said part of me was crying her eyes out, somewhere else. It would catch up to me later, but Anne seemed to have a pretty good idea about it in any case. For all that we were working to make sure the old woman could breathe, and stay conscious, until help arrived - Anne was keeping an eye on me, too. I guess that was practical - she needed my help, and I wouldn't have been much help if I'd been crying. She showed me what to do, where to apply pressure, how to hold...and when the police turned up she gave them the truck's license plate and a description, and when the ambulance arrived she told them what had happened as they got the old woman on board. I'm sorry if it all sounds vague. Even now, it's mostly a blur. What I remember, mostly, was Anne. It wasn't that she wasn't bothered, or hurt, or upset. What stunned me was how she'd done all that when I couldn't think at all, couldn't do anything at all, even if she only did exactly what everyone tells you you're supposed to do. Call 911. Tell the police what you've seen. Do basic, emergency care as far as you can, until help arrives, and then tell the doctors what happened as well as you can. I think the only thing that saved my self-esteem was that nobody else had done anything, either. Just Anne. And, because she'd tugged on my hand, me. And then the police were gone, the ambulance was gone, the old woman was gone, the gawking had stopped, I was an hour late getting back to work and somehow I didn't think I could, just then. I'd have to explain what had kept me and I knew it wasn't right, since I hadn't really been involved, but I couldn't make myself talk about it. I'd spent four minutes monitoring an old woman's pulse, and two hours ago I'd never seen that old woman and had had no idea how to monitor a pulse, either. "It's okay," Anne repeated - and now she was relieved, happy. "She'll be taken care of. And they'll catch that truck. Are you okay? Would you like to sit down?" I wasn't, and I would have, but I was spared having to say so because my hands started trembling on their own. And I tried to make them stop, but at that point that crying hysterical woman who'd been in the back of my mind the whole time came to the fore. I broke down, completely, on the wide sidewalk in front of the French cafe where I'd been having lunch when it all started. The world moved on without me, and Anne stood between me and it as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, and patted my back until I'd cried myself out. It was at this late juncture that we got around to introductions, and I learned her name. And for all of you thinking this is a romance story - well, it isn't. Just trust me on that. I rubbed my dehydrated eyes and murmured, "....Can't go back to work." And I felt like a heel, because I wasn't the one who'd just been hit by a truck, or given statements to the police. Calling a half day off from work - but I wasn't up to going back yet, either. Anne checked her watch, looked up at the sky a moment, took out her PDA and checked that. Then she pocketed it with a smile. "I'll keep you company," she said. "I can take the time off - and I hope you don't mind my saying so, but you look pretty shaken." Well. I'd have had to have been a much better liar to deny it, so I didn't. I did, however, ask, "Why are you doing this?" Because you know, you weren't the only one, if you thought this was going to be a romance story. "Because someone ought to, and I can, and I'm here," Anne replied, and before I could be mortally embarrassed about being the Duty of a total stranger, she added with a laugh, "And I want to. Come on - something safe, and quiet. There's an aquarium down the block." I wasn't sure what to make of that, but the alternative was facing my office with a blotchy complexion, red eyes, and a lot of lateness. So...we went to the aquarium. Category:OtherSpace Stories